


Motivation

by blackash26



Category: Death Note
Genre: Friend Abuse, Friendship, Gen, Past Child Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 21:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7817746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackash26/pseuds/blackash26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt was perfectly fine living in Mello's shadow, comfortably ensconced in third place, but L just had to shove his ugly letter where it wasn't wanted and undertake the impossible task of getting Matt to give a damn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I am editing and archiving this old in-progress fic of mine from [FF.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5105596/1/Motivation) with the goal of refamiliarizing myself with the material and then continuing it.
> 
> Please note that I began this story back in 2009. My writing and I have grown and changed since then, and that growth will probably be apparent as you move through this fic. My edits are not aimed at fixing this issue, rather they are aimed at catching the odd spelling mistake and minor awkward details.
> 
> **Continuity Note:** This story begins about a year before Death Note canon starts.

“L…”

The young man in question did not stir from his position, crouched over the keyboards of his small array of computers, his eyes riveted on the white-blue glow of the screens. One hand typed steadily at the keys beneath his fingertips while the other hovered near his mouth as he gnawed distractedly on his thumb.

“L…”

The man’s toes clenched and unclenched around the loose fabric of his padded computer chair. He bit a little harder than normal at his thumb, but did not once glance away from his computers.

A tired sigh flowed through the air, resting finally in the man’s ears.

“You can’t avoid the decision forever, L. You _know_ you can’t. You have to make a choice.”

The speaker waited for a moment, sighed again, and turned to leave.

“I know, Watari.”

Watari paused, his back to the genius detective he had known and cared for since the man was but a young, obnoxiously brilliant child. Even when his old back ached and his joints protested movements he could once pull off with ease, the famous inventor, Quillish Wammy, never felt as old as when he and L were forced to discuss the complex issue of choosing an heir.

“However, as brilliant as Near is, number one, always beating Mello with ease, he’s limited as well. Too unemotional, too disconnected, those are the sorts of qualities that will be an undeniable asset for him, at least until something unexpected comes at him sideways, in a dimension he’ll never understand and it kills him. If I chose Near, I’d be killing him.”

“Everyone dies eventually, L,” Watari intoned gently.

L’s eyes were still riveted on the screens before him. “The same is true for Mello. He’s brilliant, but he has no control over his emotions. His instincts are superb, meaning that his dangerous gambles are never nearly as impossible as they may seem, but such tactics only need to fail once to fail forever. In the end, the only way to pick either of them would be to pick both. Together, they might be able to overcome their respective deficiencies, flaws and histories, but their utter abhorrence of each other makes such an option completely unfeasible. As you well know, all attempts by the Wammy’s House officials to help them overcome this relationship flaw have ended in physical damage to both children.

“But none of that is new information. Is it, my friend?” L ended in the same dry monotone he had begun in.

“L…you need to pick one of them, while your situation is fairly secure right now, that could change at any time and at least one of them should be prepared in case anything…it won’t have to be permanent, we can increase the searches for other possible heirs right away.”

“I don’t know that that will be necessary, Watari,” L said, the hand not hovering before his mouth had paused in its incessant typing.

“Whatever do you mean?” the old man asked curiously, turning around to face the back of the genius’s head, “None of the other children’s scores have changed, have they? Near is still number one, with Mello at a close second.”

“You’re right,” L said, a strange emotion creeping into his usually emotionless voice. “Nothing’s changed and that’s the problem.”

“Explain,” Watari encouraged somewhat impatiently.

L’s lips curved into the barest hint of a smile around his thumb, “These are human beings, human children that we deal with here, Watari, not machines. Consequently there is error. Every single child in Wammy’s House has a rank, but that rank oscillates on a day to day basis, based on the child’s skills and motivations in their various classes. Even Mello and Near fluctuate, sometimes Mello is first in one thing or another, though Near almost always destroys any lead the other boy might gain, it still happens. Any given child will swing between several ranking positions, always averaging out in about the same place. This statement holds true for every child in Wammy’s House, every child, that is, but one.”

Watari frowned, “But according to what you’ve just told me, that’s impossible. Even the dead last child of Wammy’s would sometimes be second to last or third to last in at least some areas.”

The world’s top three detectives nodded his head, “You’d think so, but the numbers don’t lie. I’ve checked every ranking list, every single grade report, and every last test. And Matt is _always_ third.”

“Matt?” the inventor demanded incredulously.

The detective hummed lightly at that, “Surprising, isn’t it? He did a good job of it too; managing something like this would require that he be intimately aware of all the strengths and weaknesses, not only of Mello and Near, but also of the children several ranks down from him. His superior hacking skills (one of the few things he hasn’t hidden, I suppose) would help a great deal with that, however, the precise calculations and shrewd intuition that would be needed to keep him so firmly entrenched in his position is simply mind boggling.”

“And you’re sure…?” Watari began tentatively.

“Quite,” the genius replied dryly. “Such perfection, shifting easily with the tides of his fellow children and always coming out in the same place…things like that simply can’t happen by accident. In his own words, I suppose, Matt might say that we’ve ‘been played’, so to speak.”

“Played? Even if that’s true, the boy hardly seems malicious, why would he even bother with such activities, if he was really that capable, he would be number one, not Near. Why waste his time with the charade?”

L scowled, that was the problem, wasn’t it. “Mello,” he said, picking up one of his more solid suspicions. “He’s doing it for Mello, at least in part. Mello is his best friend, but he’s a very fickle friend, from what I’ve been lead to believe. Matt’s a smart boy, but considering his history…I’m not surprised that he might choose to do something like this.”

“And what exactly do you think that something might be?” the old man prompted.

“Putting his connection with Mello first, before anything, including himself. Meaning,” the genius continued, “that he quickly discovered that Mello would have nothing to do with him if he even dreamed of doing better than Mello, but that if he was anything less than just bellow Mello, he would be too disgusted with his idiocy and uselessness to even bother with him. Given that situation, the twisted child-logic that dominates even Wammy’s House prodigies would have lead the boy to the understanding that his friendship with Mello pivoted about the fact that he _must_ be third.

“There could of course, be many other explanations, but that is one of the more viable ones that I have been able to come up with.”

“If that’s true, though, then knowing this makes no difference, does it? The boy obviously has no interest in being L. Even if he is smart enough for the job, who’s to say he’d even take it if we offered it to him.”

“Not necessarily,” L said, his dark eyes boring into one of the side screens and the two images that hung so innocently in cyberspace, “Life is all about perspectives. Matt has known only two such angles in his short life. Perhaps it’s time for another. A change of scenery, so to speak, might just provide the right kind of motivation for our ‘lazy’ genius. And a little bit of motivation, as you well know my friend, can take one to surprising places, don’t you think, Watari?”

“It couldn’t hurt.”

“Oh but it could. It very well could, my friend. But the probability of this working far outweighs the possibility of a spectacular failure.” L’s toes fidgeted with the loose material of his seat cushion as he explained the basics of his plan. He finished his abbreviated explanation with an offhand, “if you could begin making preparations, Watari, we’ll have to move quickly if we want this to have the proper effect on him.”

“Right away, L,” the old man said as he departed to follow up on his charge’s requests

“Good,” the detective mumbled to himself, his eyes still riveted on the two pictures. The first was of the source of all this excitement, one little redheaded boy in white striped shirt with tinted goggles strapped over his eyes. The boy was an odd contrast to the other picture, and the two pictures seemed at first to be completely unrelated. But L had searched countless countries and innumerable schools to find that boy. He was the key, L was sure of it. He would change everything.


	2. Chapter 1

Matt shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He hated airplanes. He had only been on one once before in his short life, and although it had taken him to Wammy’s and to Mello, his only and best friend, it had still been a miserable experience and he hated the fact that he was being forced to repeat it.

And he was being forced. He was definitely not here by choice, on a thirteen hour long flight to _Japan_ of all places. And why, might you ask, was he going to said East Asian island?

He had no freakin’ idea.

He had been oh so innocently minding his own business (read: hacking top secret government files while still managing to easily dominate two separate RPG websites at the same time) when one of the housekeepers had barged into his room (His Room! Private and holy and get the hell out, thank you very much!) and told him with not so much as a by your leave that he had ten minutes to pack up anything he wanted to ever see again and get his butt down to the main entrance. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.

Well fuck that.

And he’d said as much.

She responded by telling him that he was going regardless of what he wanted, and his only choice in the matter was whether or not he brought along his clothes and “security blankets”. Her words, not his. His machines were _not_ “security blankets”.

And he’d asked _why_ he needed to do this.

She told him he was wasting time, but after a moment of hesitation admitted that she honestly had no idea.

Angrily, which had surprised the both of them, since he hardly ever cared enough to express such a pointless and exhausting emotion as anger, he had demanded where he was going.

Away, she’d told him. She did not know where or why and couldn’t seem to care less that she was tearing his world apart by the seams.

Questioning how long he’d be “away” for was met with an equal amount of ignorance. When he’d demanded to speak to Roger or anyone, really, she’d told him he had five minutes left to get ready and that he’d be sedated if he did not come quietly.

Fuck.

After that he had moved faster than he ever had in his entire life, dismantling and packing up his computers, games and disks in record time. Once his precious possessions were packed, he threw his few other material belongings into the small bag which had been the only thing he had had with him on his arrival at Wammy’s so many years ago. In went some clothing, his spare pair of goggles, the ratty little stuffed rabbit that he’d had as long as he could remember, and last but not least, his pictures. At the top of the little stack was one of his favorites: a picture of Mello and him during their first Christmas together, back before they’d known the true purpose of Wammy’s and Mello hadn’t yet thrown himself into the impossible task of becoming L.

Mello.

His best friend. His _only_ friend, really. Not that he cared that he had only one friend in all the world, one was plenty and all he really needed. Mello, just Mello.

“What about Mello?” He had demanded as he went to grab up his neglected school books, “Is he coming too?”

The housekeeper shrugged, “Not that I know of. And don’t bother with those. I understand that that will be taken care of wherever it is that they’ve decided to send you…There you go, all set? Good. Come along, Matt, it’s time to go.”

“Wait,” he’d demanded still unbelievably angry and terribly confused, “Just like that? Don’t I get to say goodbye?”

The woman attempted to pull her features into a remorseful expression, but failed miserably, “I’m afraid there’s no time for that; you’re already a few minutes late as it is. Now come along, unless of course you’d prefer to make the journey under the influence of tranquilizers?”

Matt shuddered in his uncomfortable seat. He hated the thought of being drugged against his will. The utter loss of control in such a situation…the things people could do and you’d never even…

The twelve year old bit back a wince at the thought, but now that he’d had a chance to cool down (four hours of cool down time in this goddamned flying metal deathtrap, to be exact) he realized that he’d been played. He knew his fear was well documented in his Wammy file, having hacked it years ago and removed the information himself, but he was not stupid enough to think that there weren’t hard copies of the information and now, like a freaking n00b, he’d been tricked into leaving without a fight, his tail between his legs like a whipped dog.

And to make matters worse, he still had no idea what was going on, though he did have a destination now. They couldn’t have hidden that, not when they had announced it to the entire plane. Japan. Freaking Japan.

He liked Japan just fine, don’t misunderstand. After all it was the home of some of the best technology in the world. Computers, programs, games…you name it, they made it and they made it better than almost everyone else. Which was why Japanese was one of the few languages that Wammy’s House actually knew that he spoke, they’d be suspicious if he hadn’t known it, what with all the games he ordered direct from the country…and so he supposed if they were going to ship him anywhere, that at least they were sending him someplace where they knew he knew the language. But in the end, it all came down to the fact that they were sending him anywhere at all without giving him any choice that made him so uncharacteristically angry.

Because he’d been fine where he was, for the first time in his miserable life he’d been fine. He’d had a place, a number even, a little niche where he _belonged_! He had a purpose: help Mello, support Mello, make Mello number one. And sure Mello could be an ass, and the guy was sometimes completely unstable and utterly unpredictable, but he actually cared about Matt. And that was rare. Really, really rare. Most people didn’t give a shit about the quiet, awkward redhead, with the stupid goggles and his foot in his mouth. Not that he blamed them, of course. Why would he blame them? He really was wholly uninteresting, completely useless and so unforgivably awkward. Sometimes he wondered why Mello even bothered with him at all…but then he never thought like that for long because then the blond might just wise up and get rid of him and then he’d be alone again…and that was too unbearable to consider.

Not that it mattered now. He was alone now. Mello was kilometers upon kilometers behind him, getting farther away by the moment and he was going to Japan, of all places, and he might never see his only friend again.

He wanted to cry with frustration. His eyes burned behind his goggles and he felt nauseous. Damn motion sickness. Goddamned plane. He would not cry. He hadn’t cried in years, because it was stupid and childish. And besides, to cry about something, you’d actually have to give a damn and he’d put a hell of a lot of effort into not caring about anyone or anything, not even himself. But his stomach was churning and his face was turning green.

The aide that Wammy’s House had so kindly provided him in order to stop him from escaping or slitting his wrists in the tiny airplane coffin toilet smiled with feigned kindness plastered across his face and shoved a paper bag into the boy’s face.

Matt took one distasteful look at the floral patterned barf bag before grabbing hold of it. He scowled hatefully at the innocent bag for an instant, but then his stomach was in his throat and he was bent over in his seat emptying his lunch into the eyesore of a puke receptacle while tears streamed uncontrollably from his eyes, collecting in uncomfortable pools at the bottom of his goggles.

He came up for air a moment later and shoved the bag into the waiting arms of his obnoxiously pretentious babysitter. Matt cherished the look of disgust the man afforded the innocent bag, but then his stomach was churning again in warning. The redhead automatically snapped up the bag that his stupid aide was already offering. He spent a second cursing whoever’s idea this whole debacle had been in the thirteen languages that he was fluent in, but then he was too busy dry heaving into that stupid floral bag to focus on cursing.

He _hated_ flying.

How many hours till Japan?


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt starts to put the pieces together. 
> 
> Well. 
> 
> Some of them, anyway.

“Welcome to your new home,” his newest attendant (this one was a chubby, balding European in his late forties) announced with a smile that was surprisingly sincere. Matt instantly hated the presumptuous man and hoped that the ignoramus’s obvious love of high cholesterol food (grease stains on hands [check], wider than normal girth for that height and body type [check], bag of American style fast food peaking out of his briefcase [check] ) would lead to the man choking to death on a french-fry. Though Matt was much fonder of the idea of him spilling coffee all over his genitals (though Matt internally doubted whether the moron actually had anything of the sort in his pants – a eunuch, perhaps?) while driving which would ultimately lead to him committing suicide via slamming his head into his steering wheel and crashing into the car in front of him….

“Have you listened to single word I’ve been saying?” The man was no longer smiling. Good. There was nothing in this situation to smile about.

In all honesty, he hadn’t even realized the man had said anything more than his obnoxiously overly enthusiastic “Welcome”. He could probably calm the man down with a few submissive placations as he did on a regular basis when Mello was having one of his snits. Matt had long ago learned to set aside the little dignity he had for the sake of the greater good, namely the peace and quiet of Wammy’s House.

But he had just been violently uprooted from the closest thing he’d ever had to a home and been forced to spend a horrific thirteen hours on a fucking airplane from hell. He had stopped being passively indifferent many, many hours ago. He was pissed. No, he was beyond pissed. And while Mello was usually the vindictive one, he wasn’t here. Fuck that. He would make this man suffer. It would be therapeutic. Or something.

He cocked his head to the side, letting his features slip into an expression of polite disinterest behind his concealing goggles and overgrown red bangs. It was the look that he wore on the rare occasion that he was suicidal enough to question Mello’s orders. He waited a long moment before speaking as slowly and deliberately as possible. “You were talking?”

Mat watched, the amusement in his green eyes obscured by the tint of his goggles, as his attendant’s face was transformed. His pale skin darkened with unhealthy suddenness to a vibrant shade of fire truck red. The man was incensed. “You should show some respect, boy! Don’t expect any pity or help, you miserable brat,” he growled.

Matt was unimpressed. This man’s piss fit had nothing on Mello’s frequent bouts of PMS. It was undeniably hilarious, though, that he’d gotten the idiot to loose his cool with only three words. It had to be some kind of record. Mello would be proud of him.

God, but he missed him already. How long would he be stuck in this hell hole?

“That all depends on you, young man,” the attendant said, appearing to have reigned himself in enough to pretend to be civil, his face was now a fainter rose color…and when exactly had Matt gotten around to asking that question out loud? Shit. He needed to start paying more attention.

“You have been given a great opportunity,” the man continued, oblivious to the death glare Matt was shooting him from beneath his tinted goggles. “Wammy’s House has chosen you and you specifically for this exciting immersion program. The possibilities being made available to you here are enormous. So you are obviously expected to take full advantage of all the amazing sights and resources at your disposal…”

Matt tuned the self-important man out and scowled internally as he attempted to sift through the mounds of bullshit being handed to him on a plate and figure out why the hell he was _actually_ here. Immersion program? That was a steaming load of shit. This could be about hacking government satellites for personal use…but no, at Wammy’s that was the sort of thing, that if anyone found out about it (not that they would, he never got caught) would simply result in them slapping him on the wrist, offering a few back handed compliments and giving him another computer class. He wanted to scream. For the life of him he could not figure out what he had done that was so bad as to land him with such a horrid punishment: a plane ride from hell and indefinite separation from Mello…

That was it!

Matt’s eyes widened behind his goggles. They were separating him from Mello! But why? He was Mello’s support, his backup. Why on earth would they separate them? His fingers twitched and he wished for one of his games. He had a few favorites that he had played so many times he could play them in his sleep. The mindless repetition always soothed his agitated nerves and kept his fingers busy while helping his sometime hyperactive mind focus. One of his old standbys would be just the thing to keep him anchored as he tried to puzzle out the adults’ bizarre rationale for their most recent inexplicable actions. Maybe they wanted to see how Mello fared by himself. But then why send _him_ away and to Japan no less? It didn’t make any sense…

“But this won’t be a cakewalk, young man,” Lord, was that man _still_ talking? “The rules are fairly simple though, and I’ve been told you’re a great deal smarter than you appear, so I hope there won’t be any problems.”

Matt froze. What did that mean? Smarter than he appeared? He was a Wammy kid. He was third in line, after all. That meant something, even if most people never seemed to remember that. Of course he was smart. Why put that in there then? Why make such a painfully obvious statement? Not for the aid’s sake, surely?

Matt realized with a sinking feeling in his stomach that the line must have been fed to the attendant with the express purpose of it slipping out in this stupid speech. How incredibly manipulative….How very L. He had never met the guy, of course, but L had spoken to all the orphans once, and that had been enough for Matt to recognize his handy work. L…what did he have to do with this? Why send _that_ particular message, unless…unless he – shit! Unless he knew. Unless he figured it out, figured _him_ out. And that’s why – Matt’s mind was moving at a thousand kilometers a second as it dawned on him with rising dread that L must have noticed something, noticed the well hidden pattern that kept Matt entrenched in his perfect niche of third…And that meant…

“First, you will be attending a local high school, one of the best in Japan, actually.” High school? The man’s announcement temporarily cut through Matt’s internal freak out and despite himself, he found himself listening to the damned git, “In order to make the work somewhat challenging you are listed as being fifteen and having skipped a grade. You will be a second year student in class 209C at the prestigious private academy, Daikoku. Your alias will be Matt Greene, an American exchange student. You will be expected to complete all school work promptly and to the best of your ability, but your primary reason for attending will be social. You are to get acquainted with the culture and make friends. Your social skills are one of the few areas in which there is a great deal still to be desired.”

What the hell was going on here? Matt kept his face perfectly blank as his mind struggled to process this new information. What the hell was L up to, sending him to high school of all things? There was nothing for him to learn there. He was a Wammy kid, even if he was only third. There had to be some sort of trick, some sort of game…

“This does not; however excuse you from your normal school work,” the aid continued. “All of your Wammy’s House work will be provided with explicit deadlines. You will observe these deadlines religiously. And of course, you are under no circumstance to contact Wammy’s House. That would defeat the point of the entire exercise.”

Matt scowled at the final rule. Who the hell did this guy think he was? He was only L’s little pawn. And if L thought he could control Matt, rip him from everything he had ever cared about, he had another thing coming. Matt opened his mouth to snarl out just what he thought about this man and his shitty rules, but choked on his own words as the attendant laid down his last of his spiel.

“I was told to stress that failure to comply with any of these rules will of course result in loss of privileges,” the man said sternly. “Starting with your games, then your freedom of movement, then your computers, and ending with loss of personal possessions. Do you understand Matt?”

Matt tensed. His green eyes flashed dangerously behind his goggles. Oh he understood alright. He understood very well, and a thousand times better than this ridiculous stump of a man. L was pulling all the strings and Matt was thoroughly trapped, trussed up like a thanksgiving turkey. “Personal possessions” his ass. This was about Mello. And if Matt didn’t play along, L would take all he had left of his best friend. His pictures, the stupid mementos scattered innocently through his belongings…it was all Mello, and L’s threat was obvious. Play along like a good dog, or the Mello gets it.

He was stuck.

Fuck.

Heh, that rhymed.

And that was so not helping.

He had no choice but to play by the rules, for now at least. But he’d be damned if he’d let that bastard detective win. He would wait it out, get a feel for what the hell was really going on, and he would find a way out of this. And then he’d go home. Yes. That was what he would do.

Matt hoisted his bags onto his skinny shoulders and shoved past his babysitter without a word. He passed by a tiny but well equipped kitchen and quickly found the small bedroom that was obviously intended for him. How did he know this? His name was written on the door. The bastard was mocking him! Why did Mello worship the guy again?

Matt sighed in annoyance as he entered his room, locking the door behind him. Mello’s blind hero worship of a faceless, nameless man was the only aspect of his friend that he’d ever really wanted to change. But Matt was smart enough to know that Mello could never be changed. He was what he was: an unstoppable force of nature. And he loved L.

So why had L picked Matt?

It had to be pretty fucking obvious that Matt wasn’t interested. At all.

Not that he was good enough to be L, anyway. He wasn’t smart enough. He was an utter moron, actually. Completely useless. L must be smoking some serious shit if he thought Matt had any potential whatsoever.

Yeah, that’s it, Matt decided with a smirk as he set about throwing his clothing onto a shelf above his bed and then more carefully, unpacking and setting up his computers. An hour later, Matt curled up on top of his bed, clutching a gameboy in his nervous finger as he surveyed with pride the organized chaos of his electronic wonderland of wires and screens. He started up his game, still smirking over the lingering mental image of a gothic letter L, tipped on its side, the ground around it littered with pipes and needles and other such drug paraphernalia.

That’s definitely it, the redheaded twelve-year-old thought firmly as he tapped away at the buttons of his beloved game. L would have to be fucking high to expect anything at all from Matt. No one ever had before, so why would they start now?

Minutes or hours later, Matt fell asleep, game in hand, completely secure in the knowledge that whatever the hell L was playing at, he would quickly figure out that it was useless. He was a smart guy, supposedly. How long could it really take the greatest detective in the world to figure out that Matt was a useless waste of space only good for following Mello around like a dog and occasionally stopping Wammy’s top two students from killing each other?

L would figure it out.

And then Matt could just go home.

He fell asleep with a smile on his face.


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt takes his first spin on the torture rack that is high school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made more changes to this chapter than I have to any of the previous ones. There were two main sets of changes to this chapter. The first is that I made the introductory paragraphs less of a mess. The second set involved altering the descriptions of Light Yagami to be less awkward and cringeworthy.

The Ignoramus – formerly the chubby, balding European attendant – had insisted that Matt make a “good impression” at his new school. That was why Matt was where he was now: sitting awkwardly in the back of an empty class room, nearly an hour before school was supposed to begin.

Matt had made a point of speaking as little as possible to the Ignoramus in the two days between his arrival in Japan and the dreaded first day of school. The result was that he had said less than fifty words to the man altogether in that time. He spent the majority of his time hiding in his bedroom as he “recovered from jet lag”. Not that he slept much even under the best of circumstances such as when he hadn’t been transplanted halfway around the world. Instead he spent the time trying to figure out what the hell he was going to do. Last night he had final decided that the first step he needed to take was to set aside what pride he had in favor of getting his emotions back under control.

The upheaval of the sudden move to Japan and everything that had followed had shaken him to the core. Consequently he had been more emotional in the past few days than he had been in his entire life. And he still was, damn it. He was angry and frightened and angry and confused and angry and homesick, and had he mentioned angry? But that was part of L’s plan…

Maybe.

Matt honestly had no idea what L was planning, but he would be damned if he was going to dance to L’s tune like some sort of trained monkey. Being overly emotional was like holding up a sign saying “Take Advantage of Me!” Any emotion at all was a liability, really. He had learned that lesson a long, long time ago. And so even if he was still confused and disoriented and scared and so damn angry he couldn’t see straight, he wouldn’t show it. He wouldn’t show anything. He would wear his well worn mask of apathy, and let the world pass him by, leaving him in the dust, where he belonged.

And so despite the fact that he would rather die than be in this hell hole of a school for any longer than completely necessary, he had gone along with the Ignoramus’s stupidity without a word of protest.

His fingers twitched, and he reached instinctively for his Gameboy. But his pockets were empty. How could he forget?

The Ignoramus had walked him into the school and led him through the song and dance of finalizing his enrollment to the school – what was this place even called? – and his schedule. The last was very simple. Japanese kids were apparently more than prisoners in an inhumane torture facility, they were also lab rats caged in tiny rooms without any freedom of movement whatsoever. Perhaps this wasn’t really a school, but actually some sort of sweatshop. He’d be chained to a table and forced to make cheap five dollar toys that would sell by the millions in America while someone lectured at him in Japanese about the history of the Taika and Hakuchi eras…Or something.

In any case, Greene-kun – as they _insisted_ on calling him – was to be in the prestigious and well kept cage of 209 C. He was apparently going to be in one of the more advanced classes. Whoopee.

That had been enough, really it had. Torture enough to last a life time. But then, _then_ the Ignoramus had to go and decide to confiscate his Gameboy – _his_ Gameboy! The bastard had taken it with a smirk, saying that he was here to “make friends” not melt his brain with useless games.

Useless games?!?!?!?!

His games were _not_ useless.

And they were far better company than a bunch of small brained hormonal teenagers.

It had taken all of Matt’s will power to stop himself from strangling the Ignoramus then and there. He would have been justified. No jury in the world would have convicted him. Probably.

But he didn’t. Because that was what L wanted him to do.

Well, to be fair L most likely didn’t want him to asphyxiate a man with the bastard’s own entrails. But it was a close thing.

L wanted him to lose his cool. Matt didn’t know why, but that had to be the reason for this, for the way everything had been done. The sudden departure, the threats, the hellish plane ride, the obnoxious aids…L wanted him off balance, out of control. That much was obvious, at least. So Matt needed to be in control. It was hard, reigning in the tidal wave of his emotions, but he didn’t have a choice. He had to be ready for whatever L was planning.

What he would do, exactly, he had no real idea. But he would blow up that bridge when he came to it.

So he had kept his silence and let the attendant have his way. The smug bastard. He hoped the guy’s spleen ruptured. It would serve the game stealing jackass right.

Matt scowled as his fingers twitched again. He grabbed up a pencil and opened one of the notebooks the attendant had so _kindly_ provided for him to a blank page. Drawing wasn’t as good as gaming, but it was a decent enough substitute until he could get his hands on a game. School ended around three o’clock, right? He had no idea. He had never been to a real school before. At Wammy’s House he’d had the freedom to do whatever he’d wanted. He could take a class whenever or however he wanted and no one cared as long as he did the work and did it well. Before Wammy’s there had been the other orphanages and their poor attempts at edification, but those hadn’t been real schools, not by any stretch of the imagination. And before that…well, there certainly hadn’t been any education _there_ , now had there?

Matt’s hand flew across the page, sketching out the computer he was going to build for himself as a reward for putting up with this crap. He let himself be consumed with his drawing and soon he had filled several pages with complex diagrams of several important components of his new machine.

He was about to start another page when he heard something. Was that a giggle? Matt looked up warily from where he was bent protectively over his work in the back of the classroom. The room was still empty. He could not decide if that was a good thing or not. On the one hand it was peaceful without anyone here to bother him, on the other hand, though, the sooner the teenagers showed up, the sooner he could leave.

But what had made that noise? Matt glanced at the clock on the wall. School would be starting in about ten minutes.

Ah, Matt realized. It _was_ a giggle then. The other students were probably arriving now. So much for peace and quiet.

Not that he was used to quiet. He was used to nearly continuous noise, actually, what with living in a large house filled to the brim with children and of course Mello. The other children made plenty of noise on their own, but Mello could outdo the whole lot of them any day of the week. The blond haired bombshell produced a near constant stream of sound. Even if he wasn’t ranting about Near or rankings or Near or a class or Near or chocolate or Near, which he did at nearly all hours of the day (and sometimes night), Mello was the kind of person who never stopped moving. If he wasn’t talking then he was pacing or tapping his fingers or crinkling a chocolate bar wrapping in his fingers as he chomped loudly on his favorite treat. Needless to say, Matt (who spent most of his time with said noise box) had become quite adept at tuning out Mello most of the time. And he didn’t mind the endless din since it was a constant reminder that he wasn’t alone.

He was saved from examining that thought any further by the entrance of a young man. He had short, black hair, glasses and wore charcoal grey colored slacks and a white button down shirt with a red tie and a nifty little light brown jacket.

Matt frowned slightly at the guy’s getup. What was up with that? The Ignoramus had left something similar in his room yesterday. Matt had promptly burned it with a lighter he had shoplifted from a corner drugstore in a fit of rebelliousness on the sole occasion that he had dared ventured out of the tiny apartment L was keeping him in. He was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans, a black and white striped long sleeved shirt underneath a black hoodie, and of course, his goggles.

The guy looked startled as he finally noticed that he was not alone. He had already put down his stuff and taken his seat, before doing a painful looking double take. Matt was pretty sure he heard the guy’s neck crack. The teen gaped at him. Matt rolled his eyes behind his goggles, but said nothing. The guy fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat, indecisively alternating between staring toward the front of the room and glancing back at Matt. Matt decided that the teen wanted to say something but didn’t have the guts. That was fine with him. Now that he wasn’t alone he could amuse himself by seeing just how much he could agitate a person without saying a single word to them. He proceeded to stare pointedly at his classmate’s back. He counted the number of times the guy flinched: seventeen times in the space of three minutes, but he had to call off the count when he was distracted by the entrance of the next couple of students.

Two girls and a boy entered. This boy was dressed the same as the first, and the girls wore identical navy blue sailor style uniforms. The uniforms reminded Matt vaguely of the outfits that the girls often wore in some of the anime and manga he indulged in from time to time. He had always been more interested in games, though…in part because Mello didn’t make nearly as much fun of him for being addicted to those. Matt watched blandly as the students took their seats, stared at him, and then after floundering for a moment in indecision, went back to talking quietly amongst themselves while purposefully not looking in his direction. That was interesting. In England, even at Wammy’s, no one would have hesitated to stare at the strange new kid with the geeky looking goggles. Apparently Japan’s reputation for civility and politeness was more than just hype.

Matt sighed. While it was an interesting social quirk, that kind of behavior was just another painful reminder of just how far he really was from home. What he wouldn’t give for someone to laugh in his face and call him a freak. And then to watch Mello beat the shit out of them before dragging Matt off to go raid the kitchen for chocolate. He was used to those sorts of things. He’d rather be hated and noticed than simply ignored.

But then again, if no one talked to him (even to curse him) then he would have an even easier time of keeping control of himself. If no one else cared, then he could follow their example and also not care. He could not care about these stupid teenagers, and this stupid country and the stupid rules and that stupid L and his own stupid self. Yes. He hoped every last one of them suffocated in their dorky, too stiff uniforms.

Matt pushed away his dark thoughts and watched as students began filing in rather quickly. They had every reason to hurry, after all. Why ever would they want to run late for their turn for a little spin on the good old rack? Ah, don’t you just love the smell of well worn, old fashioned medieval torture devices in the morning?

The students tromped in alone or in pairs and sometimes even in trios. The class was about half full by the time that Matt had come to the solid conclusion that there was not one interesting person in the bunch. They were not like the kids at Wammy’s or the kids that he had been distantly acquainted with during his run through the various other orphanages of his youth. They were foreign teenagers with different looks and different styles and different attitudes. But past their alien exteriors, Matt’s trained eye could see that they really weren’t so dissimilar to any of the other people he’d seen of the world. Every last one of them was ultimately a callous and shallow individual that Matt could read as easy and as quickly as a children’s book.

And he was to be social with these people? He sighed and glanced out the window. What was the point of this? What was L up to?

He was just considering jumping out the window and taking his chance with the paramedics when door to the class room opened once again. Instead of only a few people entering, there was a large group. Either that or it was a trio of very loud young women. Despite himself, Matt couldn’t help but look, even though he knew it probably wouldn’t be worth the effort.

He immediately noticed that this group was unlike the others he had observed, but then, a blind person would have noticed the discrepancy. The group was mainly girls, all dressed in their sailor uniforms and converging on some middle point…there was someone in there, Matt realized suddenly as the group began to disperse, with some of the girls reluctantly breaking off from the herd to take their seats. The diffusion of the crowd quickly revealed the focus of the girls’ ardor.

Matt straightened in his seat at the sight of him. While the teen was definitely Asian, he stood out amongst his peers. He was surprisingly tall, with soft face, innocent wide brown eyes and neat russet colored locks. The fact that he didn’t have black hair like most of the other students would have been enough to make him stand out, but it wasn’t just his features that set him apart. His uniform, which had looked pretentious and ridiculous on all the other males that passed through the classroom’s door, looked as if it were made for him. Not a wrinkle or a stain in sight. Everything in its proper place, including a charming smile that only added to the over all impression of neat, respectable perfection that the teenager seemed to exude.

But that’s not what caught Matt’s eye. He could care less about such pointless and superficial things.

No what caught his eye was the fact that for all that he was surrounded by a train of fawning females, the guy might as well have been alone. Oh, he smiled charmingly at the appropriate places and responded in an apparently witty manner when expected to their inane chatter…but this guy…he wasn’t there. Not really.

It was all in the eyes. And even across the room, Matt could see the truth in those brown eyes.

That was why he sat up and paid attention.

Because for all the smiles and charm, for all the masks upon masks that this guy wore with such obvious ease…beneath all the false pretences and feigned warmth, this guy had a look in his eyes that Matt knew all too well. He saw it in the mirror, more often than not. Well, when he bothered to take off his goggles and look, that is.

This guy…this guy who radiated flawlessness and warmth was…empty.

He was…

He was like Matt.

As if sensing his scrutiny, brown eyes turned to glance at him through the crowd. And despite the fact that his every instinct was screaming in warning, Matt met his gaze head on. The teen watched him for a long time; it seemed, not even giving Matt’s strange appearance a second glance. A spark of interest flared in the depths of those dead brown eyes and Matt found himself sitting up a little straighter in his chair. For a moment, he thought the guy might come over and talk to him, but before the redhead had any time to consider just how he might react to that or just what he might say to the guy, if he’d say anything at all, the teacher walked through the door, rambling embarrassedly about endless teacher’s meeting about important, officious donors and broken coffee machines.

Matt watched with something akin to disappointment as the teen with the hollow eyes finally looked away and took a seat near the window.

Matt bit his lip in irritation as he was forced to suffer through a painful introduction by his nervous wreck of a teacher. She mispronounced his name and attempted to inquire about his lack of uniform, but he refused to say a word and after an awkward silence, she gave up. He was glad. At least someone in this awful place knew when the hell to back down.

The day dragged by. A teacher would come in, attempt to make Matt feel welcome by lauding the fact that he was an exchange student and had “skipped a grade” – they apparently really had no idea that he was actually four years younger than the majority of the class. Then the teacher would proceed to lecture about their given subject for the remaining forty-five minutes of the class. Then the teacher would leave and another would march into his or her place.

The whole thing was intensely boring. First there was History of Asia. All things he had learned ages ago at Wammy’s. He spent the entire period drawing…and maybe stealing curious glances at that guy. But the brunet (strange for Japan, right? Was it even natural?) never did anything interesting at all. The guy just stared out the window.

Then there was science. He had hoped they might do something at least slightly interesting, but it was nothing more than simple physics. He did the rotation and torque problems in about ten minutes and got back to drawing. He wasn’t the only one being inattentive; he noticed when the teacher started berating one of the other students for not answering a question. The whole class seemed to be doing everything but studying. Girls whispered vapid gossip under their breath and a couple of guys made faces at each other as they muttered about some girl or another and another teen was furiously pushing buttons on a poorly hidden Gameboy Advanced (the lucky bastard).

After science, there was Japanese class. There was no homework so Matt began writing out a program for his new computer. By hand. Yes, he was just that bored. They had a quick break for lunch during which Matt did not once stir from his place in the back of the room even as some of the other students left for who knows where. There were a few close calls, but Matt was exuding a very clear “Fuck off!” signal and no one approached him.

He might have considered talking to that guy, the one with those eyes, but just as the other was getting to his feet, the guy was ambushed by his horde of adoring fans and dragged off to wherever teen socialites partied in their brief period of lunch time liberty. Matt shrugged off the momentary flash of regret at the missed opportunity. So what if the guy was interesting? The guy was obviously far too busy to bother with a looser like Matt. And besides, interest was not apathy. And his entire strategy depended on him being as completely apathetic as possible.

He did not eat. He hadn’t brought a lunch, nor had he had breakfast. That was alright, though. He’d eat dinner tonight. He forgot to eat often enough that this little hunger strike today shouldn’t be much of a problem. He kept working on his code. It was almost like having a computer right in front of him. Almost.

Then the class piled back in and he had Global Affairs. They were supposed to write an essay analyzing an important figure in World Politics. Matt paused in his code writing long enough to spin out a quick handwritten four page paper on the world’s number one detective, criticizing the man for his utter selfishness and laying the world’s problems solely at that damn letter’s feet. He felt somewhat lighter after that and supposed that essay writing could be pretty cathartic in the right circumstances. He’d feel even better, though, if he got an A.

After that, he had English. Being fluent, the class was rather redundant for Matt, but thankfully the teacher did not even try to make him speak his “native tongue” for the class like some kind of sideshow freak. But then there was math. It wasn’t even hard math, just simple calculus that he could do in his sleep. That hadn’t been the problem. No, the problem was the surprise “pop-quiz” that the teacher decided to spring on his class.

The class groaned loudly at the news. The teacher laughed at their misery as though it was the funniest thing he’d seen in ages.

“Now, now class, settle down.” Shirami-sensei said. “I’ll pass out the quizzes. You have the entire rest of the period to complete them. Take your time and bring your test up when you’re done,” He explained as he walked down the rows of desks, handing out quiz papers to each student he passed. He paused in front of Matt and frowned thoughtfully.

“I forgot about you, Greene-kun,” he said, sounding half apologetic and half annoyed. “As it is your first day, you don’t have to take the quiz with the rest of the class. You will however have to make it up before…”

Matt could feel the stares of the other students glaring hatefully at him for his luck at getting out of the stupid quiz. He didn’t really care what they thought of him. Actually it might be easier to focus on withstanding L’s methods if they all hated him…but at the same time, it really would be a hassle to take the stupid test later when he could just take it now.

Matt grabbed a test copy right out of the teacher’s hand. He didn’t look up but he guessed that the teacher was probably pretty miffed at his rude behavior. Whatever.

At Wammy’s everyone waited for everyone else to get their test and then began…and finished as fast as humanly possibly. Since everyone here seemed to be waiting to begin as one too, he figured that this school ran tests the same way. So he waited patiently for the teacher’s signal, and then began.

The quiz was easy. Really easy. It was hard to take it seriously, but L expected him to complete all school work promptly and to the best of his ability. He couldn’t reasonably get anything less than a perfect score on such an elementary test. So he didn’t bother messing up and rushed through, finding derivatives and anti-derivatives with ease. He was finished in just less than eight minutes. Mello probably would have finished faster, or Near. But he was satisfied anyway, he usually had to take a lot longer on his tests to make sure things came out the way they should. Not that he minded the extra work. Mello was worth it, after all.

Not bothering to check his answers, since he knew they were all correct, Matt levered himself out of his seat for the first time in several hours and made his way to the front of the room. As he went, he could feel the eyes of all the other students burning into him. He was the first one done, he realized with a frown. That was new. That guy, the one by the window, the one with the eyes, even he glanced at him for a moment before refocusing back to his own test, the very picture of a perfect hard working student.

Even the teacher was looking at him funny, or rather, angrily.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Shirami-sensei demanded when Matt handed over his paper. Matt simply gave him a blank look. “There’s no way you’re finished. If you don’t understand, just say so. Since you took the quiz, there’s nothing I can do, you’ll have to fail. But you’re new so I can arrange some extra credit….”

Matt scowled internally, while still keeping his face blank. What the hell was wrong with this guy? No one had ever questioned his decision to turn in a test before. Usually they were irritated about him taking so long. And was the teacher still talking at him? How useless. He’d have to say something.

“I’m finished,” Matt said simply. His words cut through the teacher’s rant like a knife, leaving the man gaping like a fish at Matt’s back as he made his way back to his desk. On the way back, he found the whole class still staring at him. Some looked annoyed and some looked amused…but the only eyes he really noticed at all were the dead eyes of the boy at the window. Those eyes met his, and even through his goggles, Matt felt the weight of this teen’s stare like a boulder being rested on his shoulders. Those eyes were weighing him, judging him. And unlike all the other judging and staring eyes that Matt had encountered that day…he found, that for the first time, he actually might care what this guy thought about him.

Weird.

But then the moment was over and that guy was back to working on his quiz and Matt was sitting at his desk, working on the code for that program he was thinking about writing. Another ten minutes passed before students started turning in their papers. Matt didn’t look up.

Math class was followed by what was essentially a class in morality. No, really. They talked about the value of citizenship and the importance of being a good person and of following the law. Matt really had to work at not gouging his eyes out with his pencil. He had never been so tempted to throw himself off the side of a building, but he was pretty close to going through with it by the time the class was over. Would he really have to do this again, tomorrow?

Fuck.

Fuck this. Fuck L. Fuck everything.

The bell rang and Matt was the first out of the room. He wasn’t going to stick around for anyone or anything (he didn’t even glance at the window as he was going). The entire day had been a spectacular waste of time that could have been spent doing something interesting, like playing Kingdom Hearts on his PS2 or that new Pokemon game on his Gameboy or even hacking into some government agency or another.

And what was worse: he had to walk home. He had to be outside, melted under a blazing sun and crushed in the endless foot traffic of the Japanese streets. It sucked. But he didn’t have a choice. To quote the Ignoramus “exercise is good for you, Matt.” The miserable bastard. Matt was not built for such strenuous activity. He wasn’t! Making him walk was almost crueler than the decision to send him to high school. Almost. But nothing could beat the sadism inherent in that decision.

After a grueling walk, Matt arrived back at his apartment. His aid was no where to be found. What he found instead was the fixings for a simple, but surprisingly healthy meal, and a pile of books. He took care of the food first. He wasn’t a great cook, but he could muddle through well enough to manage not to kill himself by accident. (Because if and when he went about killing himself it would certainly not be an accident)

Then he looked at the books. On top of the stack was a slim piece of paper on which was printed an extensive list of assignments that were apparently all due by the next morning at six o’clock sharp.

Shit.

He would have to get started now if he had any hope of finishing all of this in a single night. Since it would be a hassle to move the machines in his room enough to make room for the monster pile of books, Matt set up shop in the entry way. He hefted the books onto the floor and settled down beside them on the surprisingly comfortable carpet. Then he thanked the nonexistent deity that Mello sometimes babbled about for the Ignoramus’s blessed absence, pulled the book at the top of the pile open in his arms and got to work.

It took even longer than he had expected to get through eveything. There was about twenty percent more work here than Wammy’s usually gave him and the assignments were way more convoluted than usual. But he still managed well enough. He had been doing this long enough to know which questions Near would get right, and which ones Mello would get right, as well as what Doon (4th) and Vitoria (5th) would get right. From there it was a simple matter of adjusting his score to come out in the right place – in the rather large gap between Mello and Doon. All the same, it took him nine hours to make his way through the extensive pile of work, rather than his usual average time of six hours and forty five minutes. Mello always made fun of him for taking so long on his work, when they both knew he’d rather be gaming, but Matt bore his friend’s ribbing patiently. Mello was his best friend, and so missing gaming time to help him out, even if Mello didn’t know about it, was time well spent.

Matt sighed and sat up. He piled up his books and assignments on the kitchen counter where whoever was in charge of such things could come and get it. He hated going along with the stupidity of this set up, but he wasn’t about to lose his computers or pictures over something he couldn’t control. Besides, even if he was far away from home now, that might not always be true. And if – _when_ – he went back, he had to be sure he was still in place to help Mello. He had to be third.

He stretched languidly and made his way to his room. He was surprisingly tired, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the intense homework he’d just gone through or from being surrounded by strangers all day. Perhaps it was something of both…He curled up in his bed, not bothering to pull down the sheets. He reached for his Gameboy but didn’t bother turning it on. He held the device close to his chest and stared up at the ceiling of his room, a distant look on his face.

He thought of Wammy’s. He wondered how Mello was doing without him. Probably fine. It _was_ Mello, after all. He wondered if Mello missed him. Maybe. Maybe he threw a tantrum and destroyed his room and beat the shit out of Near and they were already planning on bringing Matt home so he could put a stop to it. Or maybe Mello was organizing a rescue party at that very moment and any minute now he would charge in and save the day…

Yeah, because that was going to happen.

Matt sighed.

He wondered if anyone but Mello even noticed that he was gone. Probably not. But if they did, what would Roger tell them? Did he really think any Wammy child would believe that bullshit about cultural enrichment?

On a whim, Matt pulled off his goggles. The light of the room stung his sensitive eyes, but he was too lazy to go turn the lights off. Thoughtfully, Matt ran his fingers over his face. He had such a boring face, really. He was very plain looking. Not like Mello, who for all his craziness, was truly very good looking. Not like that guy at school, with his perfect appearance and warm smile. But those eyes…that guy had really interesting eyes, didn’t he? They were so bored…so distant…why? Matt couldn’t help but wonder.

As Matt drifted off to sleep the question lurked in the corner of his mind.

Who was that guy?

And why the hell did Matt give a damn?

But those eyes...those hollow eyes...

Despite himself, Matt was…curious.


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ughhh. Gym class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter specific trigger warning in the end notes.

Gym.

Bloody. Fucking. Gym.

Why oh why did it have to be gym? Matt groused internally, struggling to keep his face properly apathetic as he slunk into the locker rooms. He had been excused from physical education the day before because it was his first day, but as he was now beginning Day Two of his lovely little excursion into the hell dimension known as high school, he was no longer exempt from such things.

There was even a uniform.

A uniform composed of baby blue short shorts and a white t-shirt.

Really.

And that was where Matt put his foot down. He had hacked into the school's computers just this morning (it had been depressingly simple to do so, no challenge whatsoever) and added to the suspiciously barren file about himself that he burned easily in the sun and had ultra sensitive skin and eyes. He added an important side note to the file stating that Matt Greene would of course be allowed an alternate uniform for activities that required him to leave the safe cover of the building. The alternate "uniform" was simply the outfit he had worn to work out in at Wammy's.

Wammy's House was surprisingly big on physical education. Even Near had been forced through a rigorous physical regimen, and though the kid had fought it every step of the way, he hadn't had a choice. In order to be the next L you needed to be able to run a several miles in one go, know how to use several weapons and know four different types of self defense. That was a minimum.

Matt had also fought them every step of the way. He hated going outside and physical activity was totally unappealing to him. But as he quickly realized, failing gym would lower his scores, and that would mean losing third to Doon (who loved any kind of physical activity) and that was simply unacceptable. He had, however, drawn the line at wearing anything even remotely revealing. The ever accommodating Wammy's House had gladly provided him with long thin black work out pants and a thin long sleeved black and white striped workout shirt. After that, he shut his mouth and followed Mello's lead like a good dog. It was what he did best, after all.

So that was the outfit he had tucked under his arm as he stole past the rows of lockers and chatting males until he finally found the bathrooms. Matt darted into one of the stalls and locked the door firmly behind him. He could hardly care less that anyone who saw him probably thought he was some kind of girlie boy who was too body shy to change in front of his ever so manly peers.

Other people's opinions meant next to nothing to him…well, opinions like that at least. If he changed out there though, the ramifications would be even more far reaching than the cruelty of a couple of hormonally imbalanced teenagers.

Matt pulled off his hoody and shirt and glanced down at himself. He grimaced at his pasty white skin and too thin body. His eyes automatically darted back and forth, cataloguing the already well known and long faded scars that crisscrossed his body like some demented form of modern art. His gaze lingered on the only fresh wounds on his body: the hand shaped bruise on his right wrist and the ugly wall shaped bruise on his left side.

It would be very inconvenient if anyone saw his bruises, after all, with wounds like that it would be all too easy for them jump to the wrong conclusions. Well not them, really, the students and teachers would have no idea what to make of the wounds except to blame child abuse, but L knew that Matt hadn't been any kind of situation like that for a long, long time. If anyone saw those and word got back to L (and it would, because L had eyes and ears everywhere, the bastard) the detective would follow the evidence to the worst possible conclusion. L was just stupid like that.

L would deduce that Mello (for he was the only one who could have done it) had gotten angry and thrown Matt across the room a few days ago in a fit of anger and then he might really never let Matt see Mello again. He would think he was doing Matt a favor (and a favor to himself, too, the selfish jackass letter) but he wouldn't be. Because while Mello really had thrown him at a wall and while it really had hurt so badly that he nearly blacked out, Matt didn't care. Mello was his best friend, and, after all, he hadn't meant to hurt Matt. He had just lost control for a bit. He had apologized afterward (in his own way) and everything. He had even gotten Matt some ice and shared some of his precious chocolate with him.

So it wasn't a big deal. Really. And it didn't even happen all that often.

Just a couple times a month.

Barely ever.

Besides, he thought, offering his array of faded scars a wry smile, he had endured far worse than a few mild bouts of fury in the past. A few bruises were a small price to pay for real friendship. And there was little that Matt wouldn't do for _that_.

The prattle from the other students dulled to a low murmur and Matt realized with some annoyance that he was running out of time. While personally he had no problem with just skipping the class altogether, the Ignoramus would never let him get away with it without Consequences of the game stealing, burning Mello's picture variety. He had to go to class.

Matt shucked off the rest of his clothes and pulled on his Wammy's gym outfit. He readjusted his goggles, grabbed his normal outfit and exited the stall. He spared a glance at himself in the mirror, admiring the fact that _his_ outfit was a thousand times more bearable, comfortable and concealing than the normal school gym uniform. Matt stowed his clothes in a locker and quietly followed the few remaining stragglers out to the field.

The field was pristine with fine well groomed green grass and a clean cut, clearly marked dirt track. Wammy's facilities were still nicer, though. Maybe he should set fire to the grass or flood the field after school, just to prove his point. It was something Mello might do, but Matt wasn't Mello. He didn't particularly want to be, either; Mello was his best friend. Imitating him would be more of an insult than a complement. After all, Mello would see it as an infringement upon his personality…or something. Besides, then he'd have to stick around after school. Here, in this hellhole. No thanks. But… it was still an appealing idea.

Matt took a seat with the others on the metal bleachers. He sat on the very edge as far away from the other students as he could without drawing undue attention to himself. Already bored with the situation, he closed his eyes and opened his ears. Well, not literally. But he stopped ignoring the teenagers arrayed about the bleachers. Instead he listened to their jumbled chatter, his brain easily separating and sorting the separate voices into individual people and conversations. While there was little in the way of content in their shallow drivel, it was mildly entertaining to keep track of each separate conversation and analyze each teenager, all at the same time.

While he listened, girls twittered about crushes and boyfriends and hot celebrities and guys boasted loudly about girls, sports, girls, video games, girls, manga and oh, did he mention girls? How pointless. Why was here again? Oh, right, L. That was why he was trapped in this awful place, listening to this unadulterated drivel. He had better things to do with his life, like play video games or hack into the CIA's private computer files (that was always good for a few laughs). But no. He was here. Because of him. Fuck.

From the number of speakers, Matt calculated that nearly his entire class of was present. There was only one voice he hadn't heard, but that was because he had not heard the other speak yesterday. He had _seen_ him speak of course, but there had been too much ambient noise and Matt hadn't really been paying attention to his voice, he had been far too preoccupied with his eyes.

All the same, since Matt hadn't seen him when he approached the field, the result was that he didn't know where the only teen he was even remotely interested in actually was. He wondered if the bronze eyed youth was skipping. No. That was highly unlikely. There was less than a one percent chance of that being true. The teen was perfect, or did a good job of acting perfect and someone like that would never risk his flawless visage over something as trivial as a tardy or an unexcused absence.

So where was he?

And… why exactly did Matt care?

Care? He didn't care. It was just curiosity. Something to think about, to pass the time and all that. It was like the games he and Mello would play when they were bored. Just amusing little diversions like taking bets on which child would break down under the pressure that week or tormenting Near.

Not that Matt had anything against Near. He didn't really have anything against anyone, actually. That would imply that he gave a damn. And he was Matt: Mello's utterly apathetic sidekick who definitely could care less about anything. But Mello hated Near, so Matt went along with it and only ever put a stop to it when he could tell the tormenting was about to turn into something else…His fading bruises were a souvenir of one such occasion. Not that Near realized what Matt shielded him from. But that was for the best. It might give the fragile kid the wrong idea…besides, word might get back to the adults and L, and well, that could never end well.

Matt's sensitive ears picked out the soft whisper of gym shoes on the springy green grass, coming though, from the opposite direction he and the other students had come from. Reluctantly, the redhead opened his eyes. There, across the field, was an older guy who looked, Matt decided, like an odd cross between a drill sergeant and an escaped convict. The convict impression part could be due to his orange sport coat, bald head and half hidden tattoos, or it could be that Matt was simply paranoid and the man was a completely normal, decent human being and not a fugitive sociopath that had killed their actual teacher and had taken his place so as to better hide from the police and then kill a small class of semi-innocent teenagers. Or maybe…but he lost track of that thought as he caught sight of the young man walking beside the teacher, smiling politely and gesturing intelligently with his hands as he made one point or another to the adult.

What were they talking about? Tennis? How strange. But Matt was less concerned about what they were talking about as opposed to the actual voices that were speaking. So that was what that guy sounded like. He had a nice voice, Matt decided, warm and pleasant and light. He wondered if the teen's voice was a mask too, just like his face and demeanor. Was this guy just a shell of perfection, filled with nothingness that no one, well, no one except Matt, seemed to even notice was there? Maybe…

Hold on. Why did he care again?

Oh, that's right. He didn't. He couldn't have been farther from caring. Really.

Really, really.

He sighed in annoyance, but before he could properly rid himself of the thought, convict-teacher-man was clearing his throat pointedly while shooing the teen beside him over to the stands. The empty eyed brunette did as he was told with a polite smile on his face. The visage of perfection only faltered once, when the boy's dull eyes met Matt's through tinted lenses. For an instant, the perfection seemed to shatter, leaving only blazing curiosity and blinding intelligence that threatened to consume everyone and everything in its path, running over him and through him and…

But then the teen was moving past him, the picture of faultlessness, and the bizarre feeling was gone like it had never been. Perhaps he had hallucinated the feeling? It was possible. He hadn't been sleeping, nor eating enough…that could cause all sorts of delirious visions, but then again, he never ate well or slept enough on a regular basis, and he'd never hallucinated something like that before. So it wasn't a hallucination. Was it?

Matt bit back an exasperated sigh. Why was he wasting so much thought on this? He really shouldn't…

"Alright boys and girls," Convict-sensei called, interrupting Matt's delicate thought process. "Today is the last day of track and field. Tomorrow, we'll start our next unit. Tennis. Yagami-kun has been kind enough to offer his assistance, considering his experience with the game and despite his unfortunate withdrawal from the sport." The other students started chattering excitedly at this news. Matt scowled. Yagami-kun? Who was that? Matt glanced halfheartedly over at the small sea of other students, but quickly decided that it really didn't matter, especially since it probably had nothing to do with the one thing in this place that actually _was_ interesting, namely, that still unnamed teenager.

…Unless Yagami-kun was that person? He had been discussing tennis, hadn’t he? Matt should have payed more attention…

"Quiet…QUIET!" Convict-sensei bellowed, silencing the blathering mass of teendom. "Also, we have a new student: Greene Matto. Well Greene-kun, please stand."

Matt's face twitched slightly at the request, but he stood despite the small voice screaming in the back of his head that he needed to start running, _now_ , before this crazy man decided to split him in two like a wishbone.

"Where is your uniform, Greene-kun?" the teacher (was he really their teacher?) demanded after a moment of surprise, "And what's with those specs? Those are hardly regulation."

Matt said nothing. He simply stood still and stared past Mr. Convict-man's head at the tiny scoreboard on the other side of the field.

"Well? Greene-kun, I don't know what they teach you brats in America, but here we have expectations and if a teacher asks you a question, you answer it. And if a teacher gives you an order, you do it. Do you understand?" He took Matt's silence for an agreement. "Where is your uniform?"

Matt sighed internally. It looked like he'd _have_ to talk to now. Well, at least he could have some fun at the bastard's expense; L wouldn't punish him for that, would he? The world's greatest detective seemed like the type to enjoy fucking with other people's minds just for the hell of it. In fact, he'd probably approve.

"I'm wearing my uniform, _Convict_ -sensei" he said in heavily American accented Japanese. The entire class, who had all heard his perfect Kanto-accent as he spoke fluent Japanese the day before giggled and chuckled amongst themselves (though a few simply stared rudely at him in confusion), but the sparse few that new English well enough were outright laughing at Matt's nickname for their gym teacher. Matt didn't have to look to know that the interesting teen understood his ploy and was struggling valiantly not to laugh and ruin his model student façade.

The teacher growled like a wild animal. "Speak Japanese! And that is _not_ a regulation school uniform!" he snarled angrily.

"Actually," a smooth voice interrupted Matt's planned response (which would hopefully insight the instructor to homicide so that Matt could escape in the ensuing chaos), "Otoharada-sensei, Greene-kun has been given special provision by the school board to wear a separate uniform for medical reasons."

Matt's head whipped around sharply to stare across the bobbing heads of the other students to gaze at the perfect shell of the boy with empty eyes. That guy…the only way he could know that was if he had hacked into Matt's school file, himself. A simple feat in and of itself, it did however reveal that there really was more to model-student-boy than he let on. After all, hacking into the school's files was against the rules

"Is that so, Yagami-kun?"

Yagami-kun? So that guy really was Yagami-kun? Well at least now he had something to call the guy other than "that guy". But was that really such a good thing? Yes. No…well, probably not.

"Yes sir."

"And how would _you_ know that, Yagami-kun?"

"Shirami-sensei asked me to show Greene-kun around and help him get adjusted to the school. His Japanese is quite good, but in order to prevent any misunderstandings sensei asked that I make any necessary explanations to help ease Greene-kun's assimilation into our school," Yagami-kun explained easily, the very picture of deference.

He's a brilliant liar, Matt noted, impressed despite himself. He glanced at the teen's face out of the corner of his eye, all the while keeping his face utterly blank. If he didn't know better he'd believe every word coming out of Yagami-kun's deceptive little mouth.

"Ah," understanding lit up in convict-sensei's dumb eyes, "I understand. You are a model student, Yagami-kun. Thank you for looking out for your peers." The man smiled a smile probably meant to be appreciative but which ended up looking only semi-murderous, spared a hate filled glance at Matt, and then turned his attention back to the rest of the students. "Now that that's out of the way…SIT DOWN GREENE-KUN!" the man shouted.

Matt, who had remained standing for the teacher's little discussion with Yagami, gave the man a vacant look and resumed his seat as slowly as humanly possible. The red faced teacher watched his every move until Matt's butt finally made contact with the bench. Unfortunately, the man apparently decided to let that particular instance of impudence go and turned back to his other, more normal and obedient students.

"As I was saying, today is the last day of track and field. To celebrate this sad, sad day, we are going to run the twelve minute run. Anyone who runs less than six laps…” and here he gave significant looks to a few students before finally settling his beady little eyes on Matt, “…will run the run again and again until they do. Understand?" Convict-sensei intoned menacingly.

Matt stared expressionlessly back at the man.

Twelve minutes? Why twelve minutes? Why not thirteen minutes or even ten? What was so special about twelve? Was it a religious thing? No. That was ridiculous. Maybe there was a study done on running teenagers into early graves and the best results came at twelve minute intervals…

"But first," the teacher called over the groans and complaints of the other students, "warm-ups! Get to stretching!"

Matt, blank faced as ever, followed his classmates over to a small patch of grass. Much to his confusion, they made a circle and proceeded to stretch (poorly) in unison. The entire thing was entirely baffling to the redhead. At Wammy's each child's workout routine was carefully personalized to his or her needs. This…this hodgepodge of stretches was practically useless. A large part of him wanted to just do his normal warm-up routine and have done with it…but that would make him stand out even more than he already did. If he were Mello, he would do it without hesitation…but he wasn't Mello. He didn't want to be noticed. He just wanted to be left alone and get through this mess so that he could go home.

And to do that, he had to blend in. He had to follow this utterly pointless regimen.

He sighed and copied the other children like the good dog that he was. He really would do anything to go home to Mello, after all.

But, as he stretched, he could feel that guy, Yagami-kun’s gaze on him. Weighing him.

Matt pointedly did not return the gaze.

Instead he busied himself with contemplating ways to murder Mr. Convict-Teacher-Man (the one responsible for the entire workout) with a rusty metal spork (there were so many delightful methods: evisceration, decapitation, dismemberment, castration…), they were lining up for the run on the well groomed quarter mile track. The teacher set up the timer and counted down for the students, "Three, Two, One, GO!"

The students shot off: some all out ran, some jogged slowly and a small gaggle of girls walked at a halfheartedly brisk pace as they whispered absorbedly amongst themselves. The students were all intent on not being forced to repeat this awful exercise, well all of them that is, but one.

"Greene-kun!" shouted the man Matt was sure was convict disguised as a teacher, "What is the meaning of this? MOVE! Run, damn you!"

Because there, only a few feet past the starting point was Matt, shuffling along, eyes glued to the ground, deaf to the increasingly murderous threats of the gym teacher.

…This was a dumb idea. He knew it even as he found himself doing it.

This was the opposite of blending in.

But it was something Mello would appreciate. He would laugh his ass off to see this.

…And so what if Matt could feel curious, intelligent eyes on him form the other side of the track?

This was about Mello.

The timer sped on, seconds slipping away like sands in an hour glass as the other students lapped Matt, once, twice…His over active brain automatically kept track of who was where and with how many laps. But that was only because old habits really do die hard. He doubted if he could ever do anything without the now instinctive calculations for how to come out third best running insistently through his mind. Not that that was a bad thing, of course.

The teacher called that the time was half over. There were six minutes remaining.

Matt still had another half of the track to cover before he was finished with his second lap. The bald headed man seemed to have given up screaming obscenities at him. He had probably already resigned himself to repeating this silly exercise for weeks while Matt stubbornly shambled around the track as slowly as humanly possible. Poor guy. Matt almost felt sorry for him. Almost. In the end, he couldn't dismiss the dark hope that his upcoming performance would shock the man (who may or may not be a crazy escaped killer in disguise) into cardiac arrest. Or something. It's not as though you could actually give someone a heart attack just by thinking about it, could you? No. That was just ridiculous. Ridiculous and impossible.

The redhead finally shuffled over to the line, officially finishing his second lap. If he had the times calculated right, he should have just less than five minutes remaining. Plenty of time.

That thought in mind, Matt's entire demeanor shifted. He set aside his bored apathy and straightened out his body and then, without further ado, he was off. _Running_.

At Wammy's House they rarely ran short runs like this. Instead, they ran seemingly endless runs around the orphanage's grounds once every two weeks and medium sized runs twice a week. But as much as he hated physical activity of any sort, after a few years of the grueling exercise, he found himself looking forward to the long mindless runs when he could turn off his mind and focus on nothing more than the ground beneath his feet and air rushing in and out of his lungs.

And now, in spite of everything that had happened, he felt the same ease coming over him as he raced at full speed around the track. He ran with his eyes closed, imagining he was on one of those horrendous two hour long runs with Mello sprinting along just a few steps in front of him (always just out of reach), with Doon lagging not far behind and Vitoria and Near bringing up the rear (Near always made up for his rather lackluster gym scores with phenomenal scores in everything else, so since he did actually _try_ not to utterly fail, his lack of physical prowess almost never affected his first place position – this was one of Mello's favorite points of contention when it came to the white haired boy). Matt ran and ran. It was like being home again. Run, run, run. One lap, two laps, three laps…

He was almost there, almost done. He could feel it. He opened his eyes, half expecting to see Mello's long blonde hair shining in the sunlight just a few steps in front of him. But instead of blonde, he saw bronze. It was that guy…Yagami running on ahead of him.

They were rounding the final stretch and Matt could see the numbers speeding down toward zero in his internal clock. Just a little bit more! He pushed himself further, faster, pulling even with the brown eyed teen. Yagami knew he was there, he ran faster. So did Matt. Faster and faster.

He didn't know why, but for the first time in his life, he was determined to keep up. He would not be left behind. Not this time.

They crossed the finish line at top speed. Together. They shared a glance out of the corners of their eyes that said everything and nothing all at once.

"TIME!" the gym teacher bellowed, eyes fixed incredulously on the back of Matt's head.

Matt paid the gaping teacher no mind as he and Yagami kept running. They slowed down in unison, until they were walking leisurely around the track, cooling down, though neither of them was particularly tired.

The other students were not so lucky, Matt noted peripherally. Most of them, even the more sporty students and especially the girls that had been forced to all out run to finish off the last lap looked really tired. It was strange to see so many people tired after such a short run, but then again this school probably made kids run to fight obesity and promote healthy living whereas Wammy's taught kids how to run (and kill) for their lives. There was apparently a bigger difference between the two mindsets than he had originally suspected.

Whatever.

The teacher–convict called them in and had everyone stretch again, all the while shooting Matt suspicious looks. Matt wondered if the guy was going to accuse him of cheating. Now _that_ would be funny.

He ended up stretching side by side with Yagami. The older boy kept glancing at him. Matt wondered why exactly he was looking at him (what was there to look at?) so intently, but quickly decided that he would be better off if he didn't know. He didn't have time for things like that – no matter how interesting the guy was.

He knew, he could _feel_ that Yagami wanted to talk to him. He could see it written in the guy's chocolate brown eyes.

Well tough on him. Matt had no intention of talking. To him or to anyone.

The class ended and Matt hightailed it out of there, easily loosing Yagami in the crowd thanks to his own height (or lack thereof) all the while dreading the rest of this horrible, endless day in this hell called high school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes descriptions of friend physical abuse that happened in the recent past of the story.


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death by Ulysses.

Matt managed to avoid the brunette for most of the rest of the day. He hid in the bathroom after gym and only returned to class at the last possible moment. He hadn’t even gotten in trouble for being late (the teacher had assumed he had gotten lost without him even having to say a word – one of the upsides to being the new kid was that people assumed you were directionally challenged or in other words ‘special’).

He ghosted down the aisles of desks as quickly as he could without being too obvious about the fact that Yagami was making him uncomfortable with his burning stares. Damn. Weren’t Japanese people supposed to be polite? Oh, but then again Yagami was nothing like his peers, was he? He just pretended to be a flawless model student. It was all a lie, just a pretty mask hiding very fascinating things…that Matt was in no way shape or form interested in investigating. Nope. Not at all.

Luckily, Yagami sat closer to the front of the room and couldn’t stare at him during class without being ridiculously obvious. The guy was way too refined to do something like that, so Matt was safe for a short while.

He quickly bored, though, of being safe. (What exactly he was saving himself from he really had no idea.) He sat and ignored lectures on things he already knew (or could figure out on his own without being lead through it like a toddler) and slowly lost his mind. Matt could feel his brain melting and beginning to drip out of his ears. Enduring this day after day really could drive a man to suicide…or perhaps homicide if for no other reason than to escape the never ending, mind numbing boredom.

Hmm…what would L think of him contemplating murder? Would he be disappointed? Maybe he would get a clue and realize that Matt was in no way fit to be his heir and send him home. No. If it came to that, home would be the last place he went. L would send him to prison or to his death…but then again, L cared little for justice when it didn’t suit him to. If L really wanted Matt to be his successor, a little thing like murder wouldn’t stop him from doing everything he could to get his way.

What a bastard.

Much to Matt’s pleasure, his hateful musings ate up a great deal of class time and soon it was time for lunch. Unfortunately, he quickly realized that this was not a good thing. For one, he didn’t have a lunch (again). For another, the free movement allowed during the break period left him wide open to Yagami. (Matt was unsure of why it was so important to stay away from the guy – he was so _interesting_! – but he could not escape the gut wrenching feeling that everything – _everything_ –would change if he didn’t. He did not want change. He hated change. Look where change got him: trapped in a foreign country at the mercy of a psychotic detective. And he was definitely _not_ harping on that!)

The bell rang and Matt knew he had to get out of there. If he waited too long, Yagami would corner him and then there was no way he could escape without making some sort of scene that would draw all sorts of unnecessary and unwanted attention. So when the bell rang, he was up and out of his seat, walking as quickly as he possibly could without breaking into a run. Once he escaped the confines of the classroom he took up a light jog (ugh, the things he did for the sake of privacy), trying to put as much distance as possible between Yagami and him.

Eventually Matt calculated that he had probably made it far enough that Yagami had either given up or been sidetracked by his adoring fans. Deciding that he was safe for the moment, he gratefully slowed to a walk.

Matt glanced around the hallway he was in. He didn’t recognize the area, but after quickly referencing his mental map of the school (promptly memorized on the first day so that were he ever to get chased by an angry mob of testosterone pumping males (i.e. bullies) he wouldn’t get cornered), he realized that he was near the school library.

Library = Computers = Sanctuary

Library it was.

He found the place easily enough. He was disappointed, though he really shouldn’t have been. It was ridiculous to even hope that the school library might be even a hundredth of what Wammy’s House’s Library was. Wammy’s House had two libraries: the original library (old, traditional, filled with books) and the new library (a converted ballroom [what use did a bunch of orphans have for a ballroom?] filled with book cases stretching to the top of the high vaulted ceiling, large over stuffed leather chairs and computers [glorious state of the art masterpieces]). It was utterly unrealistic of him to expect anything similar here. This place was a normal, everyday school (even if it was private and one of the best in Japan), of course it wouldn’t have a library fit for geniuses, since they obviously didn’t have any of those (…except for Yagami… maybe… but Matt didn’t know for sure just how smart the guy really was, and appearances aside, it wasn’t like the guy could really be Wammy level…and he was certainly no L).

This library, though…was pathetic. They had books, of course. But the selection was so…limited. And books only came in Japanese and English. Well, there were a few in Chinese and Korean, but that was _it_. Really! And the computers! Don’t get him started on those six year old pieces of junk. There were so few of them, too!

The whole picture of it nearly made him whimper in despair. It was all just another reminder of just how un-Wammy this place was. The redhead let himself wallow happily in his misery for a moment. He needed to remember that he hated being here. He would put on the façade of apathy for L, but never, not once could he let himself forget that he neither belonged nor wanted to belong here and that the moment the opportunity presented itself, he would get his ass back to England and Mello, where he belonged.

Good dog. Always finding your way back to your Master. Have a cookie.

Matt shook off the self-mocking thoughts and bit back on his sadness. Class would be starting soon, so he wouldn’t have enough time to play with the computers (slow as they likely were it would take too long to hack into the school’s files – Yagami would have to remain an unknown for a just a little bit longer, just till he could get ho- no, not home, never home – to the apartment, the _apartment_. When he got back to that place he would show that Yagami wasn’t the only one who knew how to hack a computer). He was more than mildly upset about going without computer access (entire days without touching his fingers to a keyboard! What was the world coming to?), but he had finished writing out his program…what else was there to do?

Maybe…a book?

He had nothing against books. He actually rather liked reading (in the days before he had any idea what a gameboy was, all he had done was read anything and everything he could get his tiny, little kid hands on), he just preferred the action packed visuals of games and the way _he_ could control the action – immersing himself in another world (a better world, where the good guys always won, no one was left behind, and orphans always found the loving families they had always dreamed of). But with the in-school ban on games (goddamned Ignoramus)…maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to check out some books.

Anything to pass the time…

And keep his mind off that Yagami.

Shit.

Matt banged roughly on his head with his fist. What was with that guy? Why couldn’t Matt stop thinking about him? Yeah, alright, he was…charismatic and athletic and a good hacker (apparently)…so what? What did it matter? It didn’t.

Fuck.

Whatever.

To distract himself, Matt moved quickly, darting through the rows of books pulling off a few that interested him. He picked all English titles, simply to cut down on the number of people who would bother him about it. He walked over to the desk and set down his selections, all six of them. On the top of the stack was a thin volume of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, under that were the only two books the library had by Heinlein, followed by Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses and James Joyce’s Ulysses. These might keep him through till the end of next week, especially if he was only reading at school. Besides, reading six inflammatory books, one after the other was sure to raise some eyebrows and maybe cause a scene or two, enough for a few shits and giggles at the very least. And as only Mello’s nonexistent God could know Matt needed as much of that as he could get.

Matt kept his face as blank as possible as he watched the half asleep librarian check out his books, watching with well hidden amusement as the books she was processing finally penetrated her boredom dulled mind. He watched as she did an amusing double take, her eyes growing comically wide as she took in the six provocative titles.

“Is this some kind of joke young man?” the woman demanded, her face tight with disapproval.

“Joke?” the redhead innocently cocked his head to the side, sacrificing his daily word limit for the sake of amusement.

“Well, you can’t have all of these. There’s a two book limit.”

Matt froze. “What do you mean, limit?” he asked, uncomprehending. If anything Wammy’s House had a five book minimum policy at its libraries. How could they honestly _limit_ his reading materials? That was – that was…

“Exactly what it sounds like,” the woman droned.

The situation was no longer amusing. The boy decided that he officially hated this woman. How dare she try to take his last refuge from boredom away from him? He should chuck Ulysses at her head. It was a big book; if the impact didn’t kill her it might give her a grade three concussion. It would serve the bitch right. And L would have to pay her hospital bills… “But– ”

“But what?”

“But I _need_ them!” Matt cried, his carefully crafted indifference close to shattering into a thousand pieces on the floor of the Library.

“You _need_ six long classics?” the horrible devil woman asked incredulously.

Matt took a deep breath; his normally apathetic demeanor fell away, replaced by the roaring anger than had been lurking patiently behind his carefully constructed mask. All the anger, confusion, and desperation burst out in an uncontrollable torrent of sound. “How can you deny me? I’m just a poor innocent victim who’s been dragged halfway across this god forsaken planet at the whims of a madman who has delusions of grandeur and thinks he can manipulate me to his own disturbed ends, when all I want is to go home and be with Mells and never have to sit on a thirteen hour plane ride from hell while I puke my poor abused stomach out; it would serve the bastard right if I started smoking, you know, to deal with all the stress he’s been putting me through, and then I’d _die_ and it’d be his god damned fucking fault for driving me to it! And now you’re going to deny me books. _Books_? All I want, all I asked for were for a few simple books, to pass the time and ease the mind numbing boredom of dealing with mindless zombies and misinformed teachers and suddenly that’s too much to ask?” He finished, winding down his angry rant with an angry hiss, a little out of breath; his face tinted a faint shade of red from the exertion of his rant.

“I– I, well, no, I mean…” the woman stammered, looking completely out of her depth.

“ _Well_?” Matt demanded. She was close to breaking. He could feel it. And that made loosing his cool a little bit less embarrassing. He could pretend he had blown up like that on purpose, just to get his way. Ah, Mello could lie like no other, but when it came down to it, not even Mello could beat Matt in that little category called self-deceit. There, Matt was the Master.

“I…oh, fine. Just once, though. And you have to bring them all back in on time, understand?” the woman said harshly, desperately trying to make up for the fact that she was giving in to an undersized student wearing goggles. She had held out pretty long, though. It was actually sort of impressive. He had scored third in his ‘Methods of Interrogation and Manipulation’ class, after all.

Matt watched closely as she finished checking out his books, lest she try to take any of them.

Paranoid? Who him? Ha!

Now he had just enough time to get back to class. He walked quickly through the halls, his six books held tightly to his chest, as he carefully, piece by piece, put his mask back together. He hoped no one noticed the cracks in his normally blank visage…

Who was he kidding? There was only one person in the whole school that could possibly notice, and even if he did, why would Yagami give a damn? A guy like that had a lot more important things to do than bother with someone as worthless as Matt. 

 

* * *

 

Matt managed to sneak back into the room just before of the teacher. As he walked to his desk he could feel the fleeting gazes of his curious classmates as well as a single forceful glare. Matt didn’t have to look to know who was glaring at him. Yagami knew that Matt had avoided him. He also knew where Matt had been hiding now, the books he was clutching in his hands made that obvious. Consequently, the library was no longer a sanctuary; in fact it was probably the first place Mr. Nosey  would start looking. Grah!

Well, whatever, it was probably for the best. If he spent too much time in the library L might get the wrong idea and think he was winning or something. Because he wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Matt would bludgeon himself to death with a giant key (or, you know, Ulysses) before he’d ever let that bastard win.

Class started. Matt paid attention long enough to turn in his L-bashing paper, but then he opened one of his books (Stranger in a Strange Land – How fitting for his situation!) and began to read, keeping only about a fifth of his attention on the teachers’ lectures.

He sat through several very peaceful classes this way, but all of that shattered like so much broken glass in the face of math class.

Shirami-sensei marched into class clutching a stack of papers and wearing a very strange expression on his face. The teacher walked to his desk and sat down in his chair. He fiddled, noisily with his stack of papers before laying them flat on the desk.

Matt didn’t bother glancing up from his book. He knew what his score would be.

He felt the heavy weight of his teacher’s gaze on him and reconsidered his lack of worry. _He_ knew what his score would be…but that didn’t mean the teacher would. The man probably thought he had cheated, even though Matt was only in his class because he was supposed to be smart. This could…prove troublesome. Shit. Why couldn’t people just leave him alone?

“Settle down class,” Shirami-sensei said. “I have the result of your quizzes. As usual, they were generally miserable, but on average fairly decent, thanks to the efforts of a few.” He got to his feet and went about the room returning papers. Groans and exclamations of delight followed in his wake.

Matt however, did not get his paper back. Upon looking up, he realized that neither had Yagami.

What was going on? First scores are given out _individually_ (he had been at Wammy’s for so long that the idea of one’s standing in the school being private was an entirely foreign concept) and then he doesn’t get his back?

L was probably behind this. He definitely wasn’t being paranoid in thinking that, either. That man, if indeed he really was a man and not a woman or a robot of some sort in disguise, seemed to take unholy pleasure in making Matt’s life difficult. It was entirely probable that one of the world’s most famous and busiest figures was taking time out of his over booked schedule to monitor one boy’s life and mess it up wherever possible.

Or maybe Matt just had really shitty luck. Yeah, that could definitely be it.

It could be a fun combination of both, a nasty voice in the back of his mind suggested. Matt valiantly resisted the urge to beat himself to death with his library books. After all, the librarian would never let him check out a book ever again if he returned her precious books covered in blood. But he’d be dead so…

“Your attention,” Shirami-sensei said from the front of the room, clutching a few remaining papers in his hands. “Kitamaru-kun forgot to put his name on his paper. This is an automatic zero,” the teacher said stiffly, pulling one of the papers out of the pile and setting it face down on his desk. One of the boys somewhere to Matt’s right swore loudly and leapt to his feet. “Sit down Kitamaru-kun,” Shirami-sensei droned, “Talk to me after class.” Matt didn’t bother to look and see if the student complied or not, but since the teen didn’t say anything else, Matt figured that he had.

“Now,” the teacher said, the odd light returning to his eyes. “Today I present to you two perfect scores.”

The class broke out into whispers at this news. Matt frowned slightly. Was it really so rare to get a perfect score? Listening to the awed whispers, he realized that it apparently was.

“Another perfect score?”

“No way!”

“Who could match Yagami-kun?”

“Damn, he’s too smart!”

“Yagami-kun is so cool!”

“Heh, that guy brings up the school average all on his own.”

“But who else could have gotten it?”

“That’s enough!” Shirami-sensei cut in sharply. “The first goes of course to Yagami-kun,” he announced, holding out a test paper. Matt watched as the brunette gracefully got to his feet and _flowed_ across the room to accept his paper, apparently oblivious (or rather all too aware) of the heavy weight of the half admiring, half jealous stares of his fellow classmates.

The red head frowned. What was with this big production? Why were the perfect scores the only ones singled out? Had it always been like that? At Wammy’s everyone stood alone, but here… Yagami was the only one who was alone.

Matt’s frown deepened. That explained a lot… at the same time, though, it didn’t really tell him anything at all. This was just a single factor in a much larger equation…One he had absolutely no interest in solving at all. Right?

Right.

Matt watched as Yagami bowed respectfully to his teacher, turned neatly on his heel and faced the class. Their eyes met across the room. Yagami’s gaze slid down and over Matt, ending on a desk that was empty but for the book he was reading. His gaze snapped back up, boring right through tinted lenses and deep into wide green eyes.

He knows.

Matt suppressed a shiver as he stared into those blazing brown eyes.

He was fighting a two front war, he realized suddenly. If history had taught him anything, it was that fighting two wars at once was a mistake one rarely recovered from. But here he was, attempting to pacify L and keep everyone, especially this stranger at several arm lengths (a few football field lengths would also be appreciated). The catch 22 was that any move that put him ahead in one battle seemed to doom him in the other. In pacifying L and acing this test, he might as well have attached a neon sign to head proclaiming “I am Different – Notice Me!!!!!”

He was so screwed.

Yagami refused to break eye contact as he walked serenely back to his own desk (the other idiots in the class probably didn’t even realize the subtle battle of wills that was going on right under their noses) until he had to look away in order to resume his seat.

Matt tore his eyes away from the brunette just in time to catch Shirami-sensei’s suspicious gaze. “The second perfect score,” the man said, “goes to our new student: Greene-kun. Excellent job, Greene-kun. I’m sorry to have doubted you; you were put with this class for a reason, after all.” The way the man spoke left little doubt in Matt’s mind that his teacher probably thought he had cheated. The lack of confrontation, though, meant that either the guy was a lot smarter than he seemed (highly unlikely) or that someone else had headed this issue off at the pass. In other words…L. Damn that stupid detective. What the hell did that mean, “put with this class for a reason”?

Matt slowly got to his feet and walked to the front of the room. He kept his face blank even as he peripherally registered the heavy stares and hissing whispers of his classmates. He wished they all could mind their own business and stop _staring_ at him. His fingers twitched imperceptibly and he wished for one of his games to play, to hide behind. No one pays attention to the game freak, after all. The red head took the paper from the teacher and glanced briefly at the perfect score that had gotten everyone so excited. He didn’t get it. The test had been easy, hadn’t it? Back home, with a test like that, every student in the class would have gotten a perfect score.

Then again…he wasn’t home, was he?

And these people…they were…normal.

But then, what did Matt care how they were or what they thought? The only battle that mattered was his fight against L. And if he had to make himself the subject of hatred, jealousy, awe, incredulity and whatever else these people might throw at him in order to win, then so be it.

He turned to face the class. As he walked back to his seat he found that he could easily ignore the looks and the murmurs…but for the life of him, he could not ignore those searching brown eyes that were suddenly a lot less hollow, that spark of triumphant curiosity shining brighter than ever in the ever deeper depths of brown.

And despite himself…he wanted to know what lay behind those eyes.

Fuck.

He resisted the urge to pull his hair out in frustration, because though it might make him feel better, it would probably not help his situation at all.

He sighed as he sunk into his chair, feeling the strain on his apathetic mask more acutely than ever.

Would this day ever end?

 

* * *

 

Needless to say, the day did eventually end. And somehow he did manage to survive it.

Matt sat on the bleachers reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. He had finished Stranger in a Strange Land before class had ended the day before. The rest of the school day had been spent studiously shutting out everything except the plot of his book. At the end of the day, he was the first one out the door. He had no interest in staying around and making himself either a target for intrigued students or the subject to that Yagami guy’s scrutiny.

Yagami…Yagami Moon, he had discovered after he had finished the pile of work left for him by someone (probably the Ignoramus). There had been even more work for him than the day before, (not much, of course, but there was definitely a one percent increase in the amount left for him) and so went nine perfectly good hours of his life that he would never get back. He was exhausted by the time he finished the pile of work laid out for him, but curiosity still got the better of him.

Who was Yagami?

His first name was apparently “Moon[1]”, Matt found after a little bit of digging. With a name like that, Matt was surprised the guy was a popular as he was…but then again, with a guy like that, his name could have been Mudd, and people would still swoon at his perfectly fake smile. Maybe the name was the reason for the façade…No, it wouldn’t be that simple. Yagami was too complex for that. That guy had layers upon layers hiding him away from the world. What, Matt couldn’t help but wonder, was he hiding?

Yagami Moon, was a sixteen year old second year student at Daikoku Private Academy. He had an unremarkable younger sister who was just starting middle school. His mother was similarly unremarkable. She was neither very intelligent nor very ambitious and the only things that made her at all interesting were her genius son (perfect scores across the board since he was old enough to be given tests) and her husband, who just happened to be the chief of police of the NPA.

That Matt had been placed into a class where he was at close quarters with a genius who really was worthy of Wammy’s (should he ever become an orphan) and who had close connections to the police force was really too…convenient for it to be a mere coincidence. This was a part of L’s plan, he realized.

Now if only he could figure out how…

Around him, the other students shuffled over to bleachers. Moon was nowhere in sight. Matt flipped a page in his book.

He had fallen asleep not long after examining Yagami’s basic file. There was more to find, he was sure, but the long day finally caught up with him, and he’d had no choice but to surrender to exhaustion.

He flipped another page and considered who would make a better Dorian Gray, Mello or Moon? Both had the looks for it…but would either of them be capable of Dorian’s level of self-deceit and depravity?  To live forever without aging a day…it really was enough to destroy a person, but at the same time if the person in question had either boy’s intelligence…

Matt frowned imperceptibly. Perhaps it was better not to consider such things, regardless of how impossible or hypothetical the situation was. He wasn’t superstitious, not in the least, but even Matt knew when he was courting danger, and sometimes he even cared enough to avoid it.

“All right class,” Convict-sensei blustered from the patch of grass in front of the bleachers. “Pay attention! Today we’re starting our tennis unit. In order to ease you lot into this complicated and intense game, Yagami-kun has agreed to stage an exhibition match for your benefit. This is an important learning experience for all of you and I expect you to be on your best behavior, or you will all run laps around the field until you pass out. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir,” the students parroted, eyeing each other with nervous eyes that asked if this guy was serious or not.

For his part, Matt had no doubt that Convict-sensei was being serious. That guy was so serious he was going to give himself an ulcer. It couldn’t happen to a nicer person though, so Matt wasn’t too concerned.

 “Yagami-kun,” the burly man called, “Get up here.”

 Gracefully, the brunette rose from where he had been seated on the bleachers (uncomfortably near Matt, the guy had been staring intently at the red head for the better part of the last fifteen minutes). The teen neither hurried nor dawdled, but managed to glide over to the teacher.

 Yagami was wearing the standard P.E. outfit that Matt had the pleasure of not having to wear. Somehow, the guy managed to make the monstrosity look like it was tailored just for him. The racket that he held easily in his hand, like it was an extension of his body, only completed the “God of Athletics” image that the teen was exuding with every not so inconsequential movement of his body. The other students (particularly the females, though Matt noticed a good number of the males being similarly enchanted) were understandably impressed. The whispers roared like wild fire.

Matt predicted that Yagami would see at least a ten percent increase in love confessions and undying devotion after the spectacle he was going to make of himself. He wondered if Moon liked all the attention. It was possible…but at the same time, Matt was almost certain that the guy just found the love he inspired an irksome bother that he put up with because it could be useful at times…

What a sociopath.

Matt smirked internally, because really, who was _he_ to talk?

“Now, since Yagami-kun has been kind enough to showcase his expertise for us, and considering his skill, I have allowed Yagami-kun to pick the opponent that he believes will be the most challenging. We wouldn’t want to watch a one-sided slaughter match, now would we?”

The redhead seriously doubted that the man would have minded watching said slaughter match, so Yagami had definitely asked to choose his own opponent. Interesting. What was he…

“Have you made your choice, Yagami-kun?” The gym teacher asked.

But what did it matter? Matt would have a period to sit around, watch Yagami trounce some poor sod, all with a smile on his face. No skin off Matt’s back, and he might even learn a thing or two about the mystery that was Yagami Moon. Simple, harmless, what could possibly go wrong?

“Yes, Otoharada-sensei,” Moon said glibly, “I have.”

Bronze met green through tinted lenses and Matt’s half hearted positive outlook fell flat on its face.

“I choose Greene Matto-kun as my opponent.”

Oh. That. _That_ could go wrong.

Shit.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Matt thinks Light’s name is Moon because of the kanji used to spell his name. Matt’ll figure it out pretty quickly once he actually, you know, talks to Light.


End file.
